Healthy on the hill

Christina Frangou, Postmedia News12.09.2011

"The fitter you are for snow, the lower your risk of injury," says Roberts, who has a PhD in Medical Science from the University of Calgary and specializes in injury prevention in workers and high-performance athletes.

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It's a cadence many skiers know well: a thrilling run, broken suddenly by a fall. The tearing of the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee with a painfully audible pop.

But ligament and other ski injuries can be prevented, or at least significantly reduced, with smart prepping for ski season, says Delia Roberts, a professor of biology at Castlegar's Selkirk College.

"The fitter you are for snow, the lower your risk of injury," says Roberts, who has a PhD in Medical Science from the University of Calgary and specializes in injury prevention in workers and high-performance athletes.

In one project, Roberts studied injuries among tree planters. Based on her findings, she developed fitness and nutrition guidelines; those who followed the program for eight weeks had 12.5 per cent higher productivity and 40 per cent fewer injuries.

Roberts now hopes to do the same for skiing, one of her favourite hobbies. After several years of working with heli-ski guides, she expanded her project last winter to include five Western Canada ski resorts — Sunshine, Lake Louise, Sun Peaks, Whitewater and Red Mountain — where she studied ski patrollers, instructors and lift operators.

So far, she’s found diet, posture and training can markedly reduce injuries among skiers and ski hill employees.

Ski hill injury rates are highest in the hour before lunch and the last hour of the day, she says. In other words, skiers and boarders get hurt when they are most likely to be hungry.

Her work shows that unstable blood sugar levels impede a person’s ability to respond to unforeseen events.

"Speed, accuracy, anticipation — all of it is affected."

Dynamic swings in blood-sugar levels also slow our bodies and minds. Those fluctuations follow consumption of sugary, processed foods — say, the doughnut and double-double that’s easy to grab on the drive to the ski hill. Blood sugar spikes, then falls to near-fasting levels.

Fatty foods, too, can increase injury risk by slowing down response times. Fat takes a long time to digest, delaying the release of energy that you need to keep going.

Roberts recommends skiers fuel up with complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, vegetables and beans. These foods work like time-release energy capsules. She suggests eating whole fruit for fibre, as well as lean protein at every meal, further stretching the energy release.

As for ACL tears, Roberts understands the frustration, having torn hers in a skiing accident. She says skiers (skiers rather than boarders, and women more than men, are prone to these injuries) can reduce their risk by training their bodies to better protect the joints.

Most adults hold their pelvis off kilter. Women tend to jut their bottom out; men tilt their pelvis forward. That throws off the alignment of the big muscles that support the spine, glutes and legs, preventing them from activating — or recruiting — to hold joints in a safe position.

"Put the pelvis in the right position and then you can keep those muscles recruited. For a skier, that keeps the knee flat so there’s not too much pressure on the inside or outside. Everything from the knee to the vertebrae stack up in the way they are meant to stack," Roberts says.

A trained yoga or Pilates teacher or physiotherapist can help establish the correct alignment.

Then train your reflexes. Every time a muscle or joint moves because of an external force — like when your ski catches in a rut — the body sends a signal to the brain and the spine. Things such as temperature and previous injury disrupt these signals, delaying the speed at which that reflex kicks in. The delay allows the forces on the joint to build to such a level that they exceed its strength.

"And boom! You have damage to a ligament, tendon or cartilage," Roberts says.

Research shows we can train those reflexes. In the U.S., researchers had nearly 1,500 female NCAA athletes test neuromuscular training — such as stretching, jumping and landing safely — as a strategy to prevent knee ligament tears. Injuries dropped by 41 per cent.

Skiers often ski across the top of a slope and gently push down on their skis to sense the density of the snow. As you start, Roberts says, put your pelvis in the right position, put your knees in the right position and do that push down into the snow several times.

"What you are doing is resetting the reflex."

So if you hit something unexpected as you ski down, your muscles are supported.

"Your reaction will be subconscious. But because you set up that reflex and established the motor pattern in the correct pathway, you’ll prevent injury."

Roberts expects a full handbook for skiers will be available by late spring 2012.

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